IN our LV= County Championship Division Two defeat at Glamorgan, it was a big toss to win in overcast, humid conditions with the balls winging around a lot on a fresh pitch.

That caught us out a bit and they were tough conditions — Moeen Ali and I battled pretty hard in the first session and played — and — missed, but got through to 20 minutes before lunch when unfortunately I got out.

That led the way and made it very difficult for the batters coming in for that nasty little period before lunch and we lost four wickets for not many.

After getting bowled out, you just want to get back out there and get stuck into them in similar conditions, but we only managed something like 1.2 overs that afternoon because the umpires took us off for bad light.

We didn’t get our opportunity when it was overcast and, as it happened, we turned up the next day to bright sunshine and it was windy, which made it difficult for the bowlers trying to swing the ball. It was a double blow really.

We certainly found a few different ways of getting out, which made life even harder, but sometimes things go for you and other times they go against.

Hopefully, we’ll have our share of the luck this week at Hampshire.

I thought we bowled well in both the games at Lancashire and Glamorgan with good control and going for less than three-an-over.

Everyone has bowled well and Gareth Andrew is bowling as well as I’ve ever seen him at the moment, while Alan Richardson has been ‘Mr Reliable’ as always and Chris Russell has been firing it in for a few spells. He’s been a little hit and miss but, if he can click, he will do some damage as well.

Also, Thilan Samaraweera has been getting his weight of runs as well, which is great, and Mo has been playing extremely well too, so there are positives to take.

Richard Jones will be in the 12-man squad to go to Hampshire this week, as he was in the 13 at Glamorgan last week, but he didn’t play because of the hamstring injury he picked up in the warm-up before the match at Old Trafford.

He was able to get a game under his belt for the seconds and bowled well, going under three-an-over and taking five wickets in the game — four in the second innings — and reports from academy director Damian D’Oliveira were that he bowled extremely well.

I’m looking forward to seeing him back in action for the first team. It was a good start to the season for us at Lancashire.

It was a bit difficult with a few people struggling with illness in the squad, but I thought we battled hard with the bat and only lost two wickets each session on the first day, so to get to the end of the day only six down was really impressive.

I thought 330 was a good effort and then, with the ball, we contained them very well and kept them under two-and-a-half-an-over for the majority of it.

However, with the rain and the situation of the game meaning they couldn’t really lose, that gave them licence on the final morning to have a bit of a dart with two good players in Ashwell Prince and Simon Katich at the crease, who made a decent partnership at a good rate.